Fantastical, imaginative snow sculptures in Richmond

Dragon and snakes and trains, oh my! These are the snow creations being made by some of the people of Richmond, QC. Melissa Cote, a Richmond resident herself, said this is the third year in a row that she’s noticed these sculptures “pop up”, and she wanted congratulate the creators, and share photos of the sculptures, some of which go above simple sculpting of snow to include colour and some impressive detail.

“I saw them working on the dragon

last Thursday,” explained Cote. “I decided to take pictures because I thought it was amazing work,” she continued, after seeing it was completed by Monday morning. The sculpture, located on College Street, depicts a green dragon eating a brown snake with pinkish details on its tail. Next to it is another incomplete snake of similar design.

The creators of the animals are unknown. “I’m not 100 per cent sure who lives in that apartment anymore”, said Cote. Reached for comment by email, Marie-andrée Ménard, the new director of the recreation department in Richmond, said she was also looking for the artist(s) who made the snake and dragon.

Though she doesn’t know the people who made the dragon (and who were still working on the snake as of yesterday), she also mentioned her neighbors, Richard Blanchette and Maryse Paquette, who built a small train alongside the street in front of their residence on Wilfrid Street. Instead of the horizontal and pigmented design of the snake and dragon, their sculpture is a threedimensional representation of a steam train.

Paquette said she has fun making snow sculptures. “I used to do this with the kids at home,” she explained, and she said that when she can, and has a good idea, she goes and builds it. She built the train with an aluminum shovel and trowel, with Blanchette helping with the bigger pieces and cutting the snow. Blanchette also helps with freezing the sculpture (by spraying a bottle over it) and adding colour.

The three creative, complex, and unique snow sculptures are evocative of the late 1980s and early 1990s Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, where the titular elementary-age Calvin would create detailed scenes involving snowmen and other sculptures.

When asked why she thought there were so many sculptures over the last three years, Cote called Richmond an artistic town, with “lots and lots of people with hidden talents.” Previous years included a ski-doo and horse where the snake and dragon are now, and a “big frog” made by her neighbors who built the train this year.

In the meantime, the creators of the College St. animals remain, for the moment, anonymous.